期刊名称：International Journal of Humanities & Social Science Studies
印刷版ISSN：2349-6711
电子版ISSN：2349-6959
出版年度：2015
期号：5290
页码：347-363
出版社：Scholar Publications
摘要：Forster’s mode of educating an individual involves the following: recognition of humans as ‘various’; appreciation of the ‘richness and subtlety’ of this world; cultivation of the heart, ‘feeling’, and ‘emotion’; and ‘mental clarity’. At the end of The Longest Journey, the Wordsworthian model of growth finds an equivalent expression in the country of Wiltshire. Forster’s exploration is pronounced complete in terms of exposing the gap between ‘substantial knowledge’ and ‘abstract knowledge’. Forster makes use of Rickie’s experience of Cambridge and Sawston as the touchstone on which he tests his characters’ powers against modernity. Wordsworth’s search for continuity and wholeness in The Prelude finds an equivalent expression at Howards End – situated in the country of Hertfordshire. This paper examines Forster’s A Passage to India in the light of Wordsworth’s theory of education as expounded in The Prelude. Forster’s discoveries made in The Longest Journey and then tested in Howards End are contextualized in an altogether different setting – British India. How far does Forster’s central belief in the development of the human heart hold true in a climate of sharp differences between the British and the Indians? Does it give authenticity to his knowledge of India and the peoples of India? He categorizes characters into two distinct types: the characters of a developed or developing heart – the Wordsworthian model of growth – and the characters of the ‘undeveloped heart’ – the institutional mode of education.
